This is a BioShock promotional render created by Plastic Wax for 2K Games.
For the Lil Sister i used my lil cousin as ref, the Big Daddy model was created at Blur by Ian Joyner.
I textured her in Photoshop cs 3 and Z Brush 3 and composited the render passes together in cs3.
Final stage was overall colour tweaking in Photoshop and adding my favourite part, the subtle blood pass.
Damn! Thats awesome! This should be on the top row. Hats off to the creators on an awesome piece of work. Love the mood being set in the over all pic. Congrats man 
yeah beautifull colours and mood
Very cool! You don’t see this combination of colors very often but it works well in this case.
Freakin awesome work as usual!
Great sense of mood. Beautiful image!
Like i said before this is great man, top row all the way 
look this artwork is awesome but I don’t think commercial work should automatically be a free ticket to top row. It’s promo material of course it looks great. I think top row should be reserved for the real artist working late into the night to make a wonderful piece not some marketing guru’s tool to sell their new game, film or advert.
Sorry but I just think there are real artists producing excellent work on here and it seems unfair that they never get top row. However as soon as a promo piece comes on here you all suggest top row. DNF is a perfect example of this. Sorry to say this but I am sure this forum got planty of hits after the top rowed artwork from a canned game. Does it mean the artwork was as good as ‘space drink’ for example, NO. There are planty of other example of work far better than the DNF art, sorry guys, that never makes top row.
Soon this site and the famous top row will become nothing more than a marketing tool for industry’s.
It is lovely to see these works but maybe they should be presented in another section not the top row. That should give us humble artists something to work hard for.
Please ZBC try and see what I am saying and guys this is just an opinion please try and see what I am saying I am not being negative I am trying to support people who don’t have a studio of artists to work on a piece so it can make ZBC top row.
scottleroc: I do see some of your point. But if you do feel DNF shouldn’t be top row. Why not post your message there?
“Sorry but I just think there are real artists producing excellent work on here and it seems unfair that they never get top row” — So you are saying people worked on this image, they are not real artists nor they worked late night to get this image the way it is? many great images on this site have gotten top row where 1, 2 or 3 artists have worked on it so this work deserves exactly the same respect as them.
Nice work! i actually love the color pallete u chose for these comp. Suits the theme well. Like i mention in cgtalk, feels like the background needs something…but definitely awesome dude!
Cheers,
Fabian
Great Work! well i am with Pummumu, that in these kind of images artist also really work hard… so these images should get to the top row instantly, but i am also with scottleroc, there should be 2 titles in top row one named “Studio-Work” other named “Solo Artist” or something like that (because in Studio-Work more than 1 artist is working to create an image) although both images had given the same amount of hard-ship but they should keep one top row position open for a solo Artist hard work too.
Any way Ian Joyner is my teacher (the DVD) so this makes Tyrone M my teacher too, and i am really motivated by your work the this image should get to the top row because its really good to motivate new guys like me
AWESOME WORK!!!
Ps " it will be soo great if you can post the magical composition work flow you did in cs3 and some z-brush shots"
WOW ~ It’s realy great ! Want to see more … 
is the girl kneeling?cuz if so perspectively the hands of the robot would not
be submerged?
great image. i mean yeah you could say it would be defaulted to top row, but if it does go top row you can’t say that it wouldn’t deserve it. it’s hard to say it sucks, because it doesn’t and the dnf stuff is really good work so its also not fair to say that it isn’t. there is a reason why stuff goes in the top row.
Thank you everyone for all your kind words
brettSinclair - Thank you very much!! Your Aspen work is amazing
Disco Stu - Nice work on the heads!
undoz - Awesome human anatomy work
pummumu - Ah you are one of the best!!
rayfusion - Hebs! The Dino master
scottleroc - I like your Coconut/Robber Crab
fabianloing - Your works
are so good!
Tksdevil - Thank you and Great work
Ma_Zhao - Awesome cinematic chars!
Gary Komar - Thanks, nice work. The little Sister is standing in shallow water next to the Big Daddy who is dead, sad huh…
BillyT - I love the UFC and your fighter from it is looking great, lookin forward to seeing him finished!
Very well done final render. The colors are really nice
As long as it was done in ZBrush, I don’t care one way or the other why it’s being posted. The ones that bug me are the ones that make it to the top row because it’s commercial art, and we find out that ZBrush was barely even used (if at all).
This is great work though, I dig the mood, there’s a nice sense of balance with the foreground and the background. The drill piece of the big daddy looks like it could be integrated a little better with the water (looks cut off, at first I thought it was clipping through the ground plane), but other than that I dig it!
Stephenrminkin - Thank you very much! by the way your gears of war tribute is amazing. I noticed you said in another thread
“This is going to sound somewhat funny but I am very serious. I am left handed and use a wacom tablet in zbrush for everything. But I can also proficiently use my right hand for anything mouse related. It struck me today that it would be very efficient in zbrush to draw with my left hand with the tablet and then zoom, tumble the model with my right hand mouse or track ball. Basically I want to simulate that I am holding the model in my right hand and sculpting it with my left.”
I am exactly the same and would love the same thing,haha!
eldee.s - Thanks bud
This work was indeed completed in Z Brush 3, i’m glad you like it.
The final image is around 8k high, you could print it out metres tall and all the details you could see much closer, the Little Sister is crying blood…would love for you guys to see it super close but i cant post the full 1:1 resolution work
Thanks again everyone for your kind words and wanting this work to be top row
I use a SpacePilot (3d Connexion) for a few different apps, and I like it a lot- Bodypaint, XSI, Max. But the app I’d most like to see it work in is ZBrush, but we 3d Connexion users have been crying out for it for a long time… no dice
Space Navigator (et al) works basically like what you guys are describing, and they’re designed for Right or Left handed users, you might give it a try in one of your other 3D packages (and maybe oneday Zbrush as well heheh)